


might last a day (minus forever)

by servetas



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, this is seriously just fluff so like......bear w me if you decide to read
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-24 20:20:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21105428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/servetas/pseuds/servetas
Summary: "And I liked you when you were fat, and I liked you when you were skinny, and I've always liked you," he continues, in a daze of love and everything that is good – and Mac. "I've always… I've always thought that, in many ways, you are the best thing that's happened to me."or, an ultra short thing about two awful men taking their morning tea together





	might last a day (minus forever)

**Author's Note:**

> this is......super short but i like writing about the funny bad men kissing so there you have it. if you hated this as much as i did feel free to come yell at me on tumblr, i am user [thelesbiancometh](https://thelesbiancometh.tumblr.com/) and i love being shouted at - and you can also send any prompts my way bc i babysit a lot and have nothing to do when my toddlers are asleep so. i hope you enjoy!

For all he’s worth, Mac can’t remember a time when he has woken up before eleven. Well, a time before today, that is.

And barely conscious as he is, he swears he can feel some sort of pressure on his abdomen, a bruising sensation on his hip. A knee digging into his belly button.

"Huh…" he says, groggy and disoriented, and there's an almost immediate reaction; a hand on his face, slapping him softly, bringing him to.

"Hey, Mac," he thinks he hears, but it sounds far away, like he's on the phone with someone and he's slowly falling asleep. Another flick to his forehead and Mac's eyes finally snap open, and there Dennis is: hovering over him with one finger prodding his pec and another circling his earlobe. "Yo, buddy. C'mon, let's go."

"Buddy?" Mac mumbles, eyes struggling to remain open. Trust Dennis to call the person he's banging _'buddy'._ He can't bring himself to laugh. "What's the time, Den? Go _where?"_

Dennis huffs – he has the audacity to huff, having been the one to wake him up and all – and he finally lifts his knee up from Mac's belly button, only to swing his leg over him entirely and settle down on his lower stomach. Mac merely grunts, one hand lazily stabilising itself on Dennis' outer thigh, the other rubbing his burning eye.

"Doesn't matter what the time is," Dennis whines, palms slapping down onto Mac's chest in a way that would be annoying if only Dennis didn't smell as good as he is. Maybe he's had a morning shower – Mac's favourite. "I need you to get up. C'mon."

It's easier to look up at him now. Dennis is staring back easily, expectant expression covering his face, all but crossing his arms over his chest. For once in his life, Mac finds himself not utterly besotted enough to whine.

"Why the fuck do we need to– Oh, for fuck's sake, Den!" Mac refrains from spitting at him once he glances to the side and catches sight of their ancient alarm clock – it says it's fucking seven in the morning. Also known as ass o'clock. Mac never thought he'd ever have to see that time on a clock with his own eyes. "It's seven in the morning! What the fuck do we need to do at seven in the fucking morning?"

Dennis' expression doesn't falter one bit, but he looks set to make Mac's attitude do just that. He leans down, still straddling Mac's hips, elbows and forearms now resting on Mac's chest, noses an inch away from touching. He shrugs easily, bats his eyelashes once, "We need to keep me company."

Normally, Mac would fall for that in under a second. And Dennis knows that as well as he does. It's exactly why Mac feels adamant to prove him wrong this time around; and so Mac lolls his head to the side, avoiding eye contact, blowing a raspberry at nothing. "You are seriously the most exhausting person on planet Earth. Let me sleep."

And that's that, and he closes his eyes again, Dennis still heavy on his hips. He doesn't move at all, but this isn't really a problem for Mac; he's used to sleeping on his back so that Dennis is able to lie on him in his sleep, wrap and arm around his torso and bury his head in his chest, the way he just won't admit he loves it best. Mac just has to make sure it can happen, and then he can leave the rest up to Dennis, even though they've never really talked about it. It's almost every night that Mac sleeps with an extra weight on top of him, so it's not that long until he can feel himself slip back into unconsciousness.

That is until the side of his neck starts tingling, and a lazy smile takes over his face.

"Mac…" Dennis drags the word out, like it's a piece of candy he's swirling around in his mouth, like he's a bird and it's his song. His nose is buried in the crease where Mac's neck and shoulder join, little gushes of breath tickling his skin. "Come on… We both know you can't go back to sleep now…"

"Watch me."

Dennis tuts against his skin, in faux annoyance. Mac's hand tightens subconsciously where it's laying on his thigh, fingers digging into the gray sweatpants that have become one with him these days.

"I just wanted some company…" Dennis is starting to lay little kisses up the side of Mac's neck, leaving a trail of that tingling sensation along his pulse point, lips cold and light. "Do you want a cup of tea? You love tea."

_"You_ love tea," Mac points out, awfully awake to his own dismay. He doesn't mention the best part of his day has to be when Dennis puts their two mugs right next to each other in the morning, sitting down on his lap like it's his nature to do so. "Why don't you just go back to sleep? Huh? Come on," he sighs, one arm wrapping around Dennis' lower back so he can pull him even further down, bodies flush against each other, in a desperate attempt to get him to be comfortable and hear his breath even out.

This can't happen if Dennis is hyper, as it seems.

"I _can't,_ though," he whines, mouth climbing up so it can be flush against Mac's cheek, voice muffled against it. "I've been trying for, like, an hour. You snore."

"I thought my snoring was cute," Mac says, the knuckles of his hand rubbing up and down Dennis' spine leisurely.

Dennis lifts his head up at that, searching for Mac's eyes to make eye contact. "It's cute when it doesn't make the walls shake. Anything louder than that is an invitation to suffocate you in your sleep."

Despite himself, Mac lets a little breathy chuckle leave his nose, scratching down Dennis' back in an attempt to get him to shut up and melt into his arms. That doesn't really happen on the whole, but Dennis can be heard almost purring to himself. "You don't mean that," Mac says, too confident for his own good. "I think you love me too much."

Laughter rumbling near his chest. "That's the funniest thing I've ever heard," Dennis says, straightening himself up, balancing himself by planting two flat palms on Mac's chest. "I think you're too confident about that."

"I think you're being bitchy because I won't get up at the ass crack of dawn," Mac huffs, both hands grasping at the sides of Dennis' thighs, digging his nails in playfully. "Seriously, though, baby. Lie down and leave it up to me, alright?"

"That sounded vaguely sexual."

Mac pauses, relishing in the little staredown they've established between themselves; Mac's red–rimmed eyes are playful, Dennis' scarily icy eyes seem expectant.

"I'll take anything else than getting up, babe," Mac says, finally, and Dennis sort of deflates. "So it might as well have been."

"Will you just get up, you lazy piece of shit?" he tuts, one hand circling around Mac's bicep with the excuse to pull him up. "Come on. I need company to eat my cereal with."

Mac grunts again, slinging one forearm over his eyes, pretending he doesn't feel Dennis' fingers stroking down his bicep, "I can't believe it's come to the point where you'll choose eating fucking _cereal_ over having sex with me. Our relationship is going through a crisis."

"Our relationship is always going through a crisis, baby," Dennis says, awfully cheery, and Mac removes the arm from over his face to narrow his eyes at him. "Mac, I'm serious. If you don't get up right now, I'm going to go have breakfast with Charlie and Frank."

In a moment of spontaneity, utter adoration, and utmost annoyance, Mac springs up and wraps both of his arms around Dennis' waist, bringing their chests flush against each other, Dennis grunting in surprise; he starts sucking playful kisses onto his neck, rabid in his ways, Dennis' hands slapping down his back.

"Charlie and Frank don't even function after three in the afternoon, first of all," Mac mumbles into his pulse point, sucking a little bruise afterwards, awfully awake. He should be sleeping right now. He should be sleeping with Dennis unconscious and not obnoxious in his arms, mouth slack and heart full. Maybe it's not the worst thing in the world, after all. "And when I don't drink tea with you in the morning you get all cranky for the rest of the day."

"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard," Dennis tuts, secretly relishing in the little kisses Mac is still peppering down his throat. "If anything, I get cranky hearing you slurp on the fucking thing like it's the last thing you'll ever drink. You're supposed to drink it slowly."

"Aren't you bored of pretending you hate everything about me, Den?" Mac finally pulls away from Dennis' sweet–smelling skin, looking at him with a smile in his eyes, radiating amusement. Dennis exchanges the sentiment. "You always do it. I know you think my slurping is cute. And I know you like it when I take up all the space on the couch because then you have an excuse to sit on my lap. And you think my beard is hot and it doesn't actually irritate your skin."

Dennis has been pursing his lips in amusement ever since Mac started talking, the sides of his lips quirking up into a smile, eyes sceptical. He finally sighs, "Do you realise that instead of sitting here talking shit, you could be eating cereal in the kitchen or getting blown? Or _both?"_

Mac ponders. Truth is, sitting here talking shit with Dennis in his arms isn't the worst thing in the world (to be honest, it's one of his favourite pastime activities), but the second option is becoming more appealing by the second. And it's part of the Dennis Effect, probably, but he's not smart enough to know how to escape it affecting him. So, he won't even try.

"I don't think you mean that last part," he says, leaving a little kiss on Dennis' jaw, wasting time at this point.

"Why don't you find out?"

And Dennis pulls his head away from Mac's mouth, pulls his whole body away from Mac's own, frankly, a single hand pulling Mac forward by his bicep, tugging playfully. Dennis is standing up now, and his hand slides down from Mac's bicep to his own hand, tugging softly once again, until Mac finally lets that annoyed facade drop and he huffs, pushing himself off his warm bed on onto the cold tile, letting Dennis lead him to their colder kitchen.

"You deserve jail time for the shit you do sometimes," Mac says, as an offhand comment, just as Dennis pushes him down onto a chair around the dinner table. It's all set up, too: their mugs, opposite each other, the tea kettle bleeding out with steam and waiting for them in the middle of it. "You had it all set up. Of _course_ you had it all fucking set up."

"You can't say no to me, baby," Dennis tuts, pouring tea into Mac's mug. "You're too in love with me. I can do whatever I want at this point."

Mac doesn't disagree, because he knows it's not in his favour. Instead, he observes Dennis as he sits down with his own mug full of tea, how he blows on it faux nonchalantly, his eyes set on Mac. It's not something they haven't done before.

"I'll never understand why you do that," Mac says after a while, when both of their resignation has been established through several beats of silence. 

Dennis swirls his tea around with his spoon, eyebrow quirking in a way that shows he knows exactly what Mac's talking about. And yet: "What are you talking about?"

"You keep sitting, like, a metre away from me until I'm the one to ask you to come sit on my lap. You always do it. And then say some shit like you only did it because it was cold."

With a little chuckle, Dennis gets up off his seat, mug still in hand, and walks over to Mac's seat. "It _is_ fucking cold in here," he says, even as he's settling down onto Mac's thighs like it's second nature, like he's used to it. He must be used to it, anyhow. It only happens every day.

"Why don't you turn the heating on, smartass?" Mac says, whispered in secret into the skin of Dennis' shoulder. His back is flush against Mac's chest, his elbows by his ribs, his shoulder like a rest for his chin.

Dennis doesn't reply. He takes a sip of his tea, making himself comfortable on Mac's lap, melting against Mac's knuckles stroking down his side.

"Just say that you love me, bro. It's not that hard."

A laugh, almost incredulous. Mac smiles against Dennis' neck, tea be damned, his teeth leaving little bite marks as he bites down on his flesh gently, jokingly. It's a game between them. Dennis pretends he doesn't love him, and Mac has to coax it out of him. It always has the same outcome.

"I love my bed, I love my couch, I love the bar–"

_"I_ love how all of those have to do with me in one way or another."

"Oh, that's a new one!" Dennis laughs, slapping down Mac's hand as it rests on his lower stomach, putting his tea down. "And how the fuck so, Mac?"

"We literally sleep in the same bed, and you always need me to spoon you when you lie down on the couch because it's freezing in here," Mac almost rolls his eyes, but then he remembers Dennis is still facing forward and can't see him, with the tiniest smile tugging on his lips. "We both never tend the bar. So that's another thing."

"These are all subjective," Dennis huffs. "I can say whatever I want, too. Doesn't make it true."

Mac decides to give up on that tactic (it's tired anyway) and takes on putting his mouth close to Dennis' ear, wrapping his arms around his torso tightly, so he can't get up and leave. Not that he would.

"I love you, Mac…" Mac breathes, in his best attempt at a lovestruck tone, airy and soft and gentle. Dennis all but pisses himself laughing. "Oh, Mac, I can't live without you! You're so hot and cool and badass! What would I do without your _totally_ smoking hot body and _totally_ sweet karate moves and _totally–"_

"I will _totally_ go to Dee's to spend the rest of my morning," Dennis interrupts, in the midst of his laughing fit. "If I say some stupid shit like that will you let me be for the rest of the day?"

Mac is too caught up in the sparkle of Dennis' eyes to answer right away; it's not very often he can make him laugh like that, genuine and uncontrollable, in a way that's beyond him. He mentally shakes himself, though, enthusiastically nods, big, dumb smile on his face.

"Mac," Dennis starts, swinging around in Mac's lap so that he's straddling his thighs, legs on either side of his body. "I like it when… I don't know, I like it when we come home late at night and you– You sort of… pull me towards the bedroom even when I have stuff to do, and then you throw me on the bed and lie down on top of me so I can't leave. I like that."

"Like or _love?"_

"Love, you big asshole, okay? I love it," Dennis huffs, the adoration and satisfaction in Mac's eyes enough to drown him whole. "And I think you're a handsome guy."

"Handsome? Just handsome?" Mac interrupts, threading his fingers together behind Dennis' back, making sure he won't flee the conversation. "What about all the other stuff? Say the other stuff. What– The things you say when we're in bed."

"I can't say them now because we're not in bed."

"Oh, so when we're not in bed they stop being true?"

"No, baby, it's–" Dennis pauses, takes a deep breath, levels with his fate. Mac knows he's won. "Fine, I'll– Yeah. I love…" he takes his time, and his hands slide up under Mac's shirt on their own accord, resting on his abdomen, fingers dipping into and feeling the creases of his abs. "I like your body, I guess. And how strong you are. And how you can carry me home in your arms from the bar or when I fall asleep on the couch to the bed."

"Do you like it when I drop you?"

Dennis doesn't look to be in the mood for joking. "I like it because then you can pick me up again."

The smile on Mac's face feels permanent, like nothing is going to make it drop for the rest of his life, like nothing is bad in the world. And it's not like he didn't know any of those things, but the reality of them is much too overwhelming when they're coming from Dennis himself instead of the dusty corners of his own brain for once.

"And, yeah, I _do_ like your beard," Dennis continues, although Mac is beyond covered. "And even though it does irritate my skin and makes me have those little spots, I'd kill you if you actually shaved it off. It's sexy."

Dennis' hands start moving along Mac's abdomen, gently, exploring where he's been a million times before, sliding back towards his lower back.

"I like it when you yell at Dee, because… Well, because it's Dee," he smiles as Mac laughs, all wrinkled–eyed and beaming, "but also because you're taking charge and you– you sort of do that a lot lately and I, you know…"

"I know," Mac says. It's getting harder for Dennis to admit the more intimate things, the more delicate ones, and Mac knows it. As dumb as he is, Mac knows a lot.

"Yeah, you– You only really take charge in bed and I'd like that to be more… the norm. I want you to step up sometimes. Tell me I'm not always right."

By his interlocked hands behind his back, Mac pushes Dennis forward, his mouth attracted to Dennis' jaw like a magnet, peppering long, wet kisses along the length of it. Dennis lets out a sigh, one that resembles relief quite bizarrely, and his hands slide out from under Mac's shirt to grab onto his shoulders instead.

"I like how… I like how ripped you are."

Mac laughs against Dennis' jaw, beaming and surprised, his hands squeezing at Dennis' hips.

"And I liked you when you were fat, and I liked you when you were skinny, and I've always liked you," he continues, in a daze of love and everything that is good – and _Mac._ "I've always… I've always thought that, in many ways, you are the best thing that's happened to me."

The silence doesn't seem unfitting. It's Mac's attempt to process everything, take everything in, really marvel at the magnitude of Dennis' love for him, even if he won't come out and say it outright. Slowly, he leans up, captures Dennis' mouth in a kiss, one that he hopes will convey everything he's feeling right this moment; love, adoration, admiration.

Dennis kisses back, of course he does, and he does so with the same urgency, the same open mouth and the same intimacy and passion as he always has.

"Jesus, Mac," he breathes, rosy–cheeked and panting, giggling as Mac starts ravishing his throat and neck, biting kisses into his flushed skin. "I know I never say it, baby, but… I love you. I do love you."

"I know you do, Den," Mac breathes in between kisses, airy and honest. "I love you."

And on their own accord, they somehow end up slouched against each other, hungry kissing reduced to a loving embrace, Dennis' arms around Mac's broad shoulders, Mac's fingers slipping under the hem of his sweatpants.

"Doesn't it scare you sometimes?" 

Dennis says it so low and quiet that Mac almost doesn't hear him. He lifts his head up from the hollow of Dennis' neck, big brown eyes peering up at him inquiringly.

"Doesn't _what_ scare me?" Mac slides one hand up Dennis' back, scratches at his shoulder blades the way he knows he likes best. "Do you mean–"

"Like, loving… someone," Dennis elaborates, and it still seems to Mac that he's not quite saying everything.

The arms around his shoulders feel warm, beautiful, desperate.

"I don't love _someone._ I love _you."_

"Same thing."

"It's not," Mac tuts, softly slapping one of Dennis' cheeks, making the side of his mouth quirk up. "Not if it's you. I know you, man. I know you and this is why I love you, Den. I knew what I was doing."

Dennis trails one finger down Mac's temple, slides it down to his jawline, traces the prominent jut of it with a cold fingertip. The journey leaves the trail tingling, and Mac's pretty sure it sparkles like fairy dust – but Dennis would say he's exaggerating.

"I don't know if it scares me anymore," Dennis says after a while, finger still toying with Mac's jawbone. "I don't think it does."

Mac doesn't say anything. Instead, he beams again, like he's been doing all morning, and he covers Dennis' hand on his jaw with his own, holding on to it for dear life. Even though it's cold, it warms Mac's insides, makes his heart flutter, makes Dennis' eyes sparkle beautifully.

Mac knows he's not scared anymore. Mac always knows.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!


End file.
